A Democratic Socialist Blog

Socialist Solutions: True Democracy

There are many theories on Economic and Social Justice. Democracy is fueled on both, outside liberty and freedom. There are other points of view on how to achieve this. But, The answer is for the USA an alternative political party.
Why? Because there is no other way to achieve democracy and change the quality of life.Some people feel no government works. Try reading “Lord Of The Flies”. Enlightenment is an individual, spiritual thing, no synergy is possible.
On a local level, working on the Vineland NJ Renters Association (I am Vice President), City Hal is resistant to change. I tried running for Mayor and no avail, undemocratic policies like the Faulkner Petitioning act leaves City Hall in the power of local business.
The dangers of a representational democracy is all the power is sewed up in Politicians. Representation goes to business all the time, in Cities, the business community, In States and federal government, Wall Street and the military. In a Democracy people are suppose to be empowered. People should be able to overturn, and easily referendum repetitivenesses to accept policies by the will of the people. Political decisions should be return to the people for approval and vote to enforce or remove the legislation, or advocate items like Rent Control.
In general, the term “direct democracy” usually refers to citizens making policy and law decisions in person, without going through representatives and legislatures. The classic example of this is the New England Town Meeting where anyone from the town who wants to show up to debate and vote on town policy can do so. Until recently, this worked for scores of communities, but low attendance at many modern town meetings has raised questions about whether they are truly democratic.
Co-Intelligent political theory explores how human society at all levels — from neighborhoods to nations — can self-organize wisely. The Co-Intelligence Institute’s work focuses on catalyzing wiser democratic systems. High quality dialogue is perhaps the most important factor in developing the capacity for wise democratic self-organization. Many of the articles in this section focus on how to institutionalize wisdom-generating dialogue in democratic political culture and representative governance. We also include sections on co-intelligent activism, polarization and public issues which involve practical political applications of co-intelligence. There is also more material on democracy at the website of Tom Atlee’s book The Tao of Democracy.
Only people can make democracy work. Judging from the out comes of elections, people do not seem to want a democracy. People are not innocent bystanders on the election of horrible politicians, but complicit. Millions of Germans where not right in supporting Nazi Germany. But there is Occupy Wall Street, Moral Monday’s, and The Carnation Revolution. Also as paradigms, worker owned Co-ops.
Social Democratic Socialism is the best avenue for Democracy, sure there have been failures, yet there are major successes.Living systems – people, communities, and natural systems – can and do self-organize to meet their needs and enhance their lives. In this it shares much with co-intelligent political theory. It offers both an appreciative critique of existing economic systems and envisions ways they can evolve to be both more fulfilling and more sustainable. While appreciating the role of competition, it tends towards co-operative, holistic and wiser dynamics and perspectives. The American Labor Party has a Constitution similar to a Co-operatiive and is a Socialist International sympathetic party.
People are not educated to democracy. But many seem to want it, with worker owned Co-ops, ESOPs, Free Elections in some countries, town meetings, etc.
Unfortunately the world is not an intellectual place, and especially in the USA there are too many socially retarded enclaves. People will say, me and my 78 year old granny still work because we don’t want to be like those bums on welfare. Ask granny and her Social Security does not go far enough.
Participatory democracy is a process emphasizing the broad participation of constituents in the direction and operation of political systems. Etymological roots of democracy (Greek demos and kratos) imply that the people are in power and thus that all democracies are participatory. However, participatory democracy tends to advocate more involved forms of citizen participation and greater political representation than traditional representative democracy. Participatory democracy may also be a form of semi-direct democracy (representative democracy with instruments, elements, and/or features of direct democracy).
There are short comings to many forms of democracy, but participatory democracy is similar to Co-operative Democracy.
Participatory democracy strives to create opportunities for all members of a population to make meaningful contributions to decision-making, and seeks to broaden the range of people who have access to such opportunities. Since so much information must be gathered for the overall decision-making process to succeed, technology may provide important forces leading to the type of empowerment needed for participatory models, especially those technological tools that enable community narratives and correspond to the accretion of knowledge. Effectively increasing the scale of participation, and translating small but effective participation groups into small world networks, are areas currently being studied.
Wise Democracy is another form. Albert Einstein,a socialist, famously said, “today’s problems cannot be solved at the same level of thinking that created them.” Most important is to facilitate a higher level of thinking of Collective thinking.
Three social innovations make it possible for large systems of people to solve seemingly impossible problems by working together.
In communities, cities, states, and nations and globally. We are facing impossible-seeming problems like:
Deep inequities:poverty, prejudice, elite power, etc.
Institutional failures: education, health care, justice, security, etc.
Intractable problems punishing economic cycles, addictive substances, environmental destruction, etc.
Flawed decision-making disaffected citizens, money-in-politics, partisan gridlock, etc.
Choice-creating is a heartfelt, creative mode of thinking where people address important issues with the best interests of all in mind. It often arises naturally in a crisis when people put aside their denial and their roles to engage one another authentically. The natural outcome of choice-creating is a unanimous perspective. Paradoxically, this unity arises not from people becoming more similar, yet more different. Choice-creating evokes unity through shifts and breakthroughs not compromise. Breakthroughs evoke unity through diversity (e pluribus unam). Let the people rule in a Peoples Democracy. a Combo of Direct and Wise Participatory Democracy seem to be the best.